Littles inauguration is Nov. 30

By Terry GallagherU-M-Dearborn

Little

Daniel E. Little
will be
inaugurated as the fifth chancellor of U-M-Dearborn at a ceremony beginning at 2:30 p.m. Nov. 30 in the campuss Fieldhouse. Members of the community are welcome to attend the ceremony and a reception to follow in the Mardigian Library.

The inauguration of a chancellor is a long-standing academic tradition that allows us the opportunity to reflect on our history and recognize our commitment to shared academic values, says Elaine Clark, professor of history at Dearborn. As a tradition, these ceremonies change with needs of the times and the communities we serve, while maintaining our long-standing commitment to scholarship and community.

Clark chairs a committee of faculty, staff and students involved in planning the inauguration celebration. My colleagues on the committee and other members of the campus community have assembled a range of activities that showcase the genuine strengths of our campus, she says.

Events include a concert, lectures, a symposium on the School of Educations Early Literacy Project, an exhibition of photographs mapping the regions religious communities, presentations by scholars in the natural sciences and an open house at the Child Development Center.

I am very pleased that the inauguration committee has organized the celebration around the intellectual and educational activities that bind us together, Little says. An inauguration can be an important way to celebrate the institution, and this moment of people coming together to recognize our sense of community can have long-term benefits in the life of U-M-Dearborn.

Little became chancellor in July, succeeding James C. Renick, who is now chancellor of North Carolina Agricultural & Technical State University, and interim Chancellor Bernard Klein.

He had been vice president for academic affairs and professor of philosophy at Bucknell University since 1996.

Prior to joining Bucknell, he was associate dean of the faculty at Colgate University (199396) and also was assistant professor (197985), associate professor (198592) and professor of philosophy (199296).

Little holds a B.S. in mathematics and A.B. in philosophy, both from the University of Illinois, where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. He earned his Ph.D. in philosophy from Harvard University.

Little also is professor of philosophy and a faculty associate at the Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research on the Ann Arbor campus.

Concert, discussion with Thomas Sugrue among inauguration events

Thomas J. Sugrue, author of The Origins of the Urban Crisis: Race and Inequality in Postwar Detroit, will discuss his work at 3 p.m. Nov. 29 in Lecture Hall B, at the U-M-Dearborn School of Management building.

Sugrues 1996 book is a study of the history of race relations in Detroit after World War II. He focuses on city neighborhoods where white working-class homeowners mobilized to prevent integration as Blacks tried to move out of the inner city.

The book won the Bancroft Prize in American History and Diplomacy in 1998. The study also won the Social Science History Associations Presidents Book Award, the Philip Taft Prize for Labor History and several other honors. Sugrue is associate professor of history at the University of Pennsylvania.

Two scholars will respond to Sugrues lecture: Alma H. Young, dean of the College of Urban, Labor and Metropolitan Studies at Wayne State University, and Bruce Pietrykowski, associate professor of economics and associate dean of the College of Arts, Sciences, and Letters at Dearborn. Little will moderate the discussion.

The free, public lecture is one in a series of presentations at Dearborn, under the heading of Text in Community, designed to engage the campus community in discussions with authors whose writings focus on significant current or emerging issues.

A Nov. 29 concert will feature the second performance of Mail, a work based on poems by English Prof. Alice Fulton and composed by Enid Sutherland.

The work will be performed by the Phoenix Ensemble, an Ann Arbor-based chamber orchestra conducted by Annunziata Tomaro, and mezzo-soprano Deanna Relyea. The free concert will begin at 7:30 p.m. at the Henry Ford Estate.

The concert also will feature piano solos by Louis Nagel, professor of music, School of Music, and a Beethoven trio performed by Nagel, Miriam Bolkosky on cello and Gabriel Bolkosky on violin.

A concert, and especially one featuring this music, is truly an appropriate way to celebrate the inauguration of a new chancellor and all that it stands for in the life of the institution, says history Prof. Sidney Bolkosky. It shows our commitment to the cultural examination of gender studies and questions of diversity, and the exploration of new media and connections among media.

Bolkosky chaired the search committee that led to the selection of Little as Dearborns fifth chancellor and is a member of the committee planning the inauguration celebration. His son, Gabriel, organized the Nov. 29 concert and the music that will be performed during the Nov. 30 inauguration ceremony.

The performance will be followed by a discussion moderated by Abigail Stewart, director of the Institute for Research on Women and Gender and the Agnes Inglis Collegiate Professor of Psychology. Fulton and Sutherland will comment on the work.